


heavy dose of atmosphere

by goinghost



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, and i think about their relationship a lot, i love these characters a lot, so i wrote about em
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-04 01:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11544306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goinghost/pseuds/goinghost
Summary: “Hail and well met!”“And you are?” She raised an eyebrow.He stuck out a hand, it was rough and calloused, covered in threads of tiny scars. The hand of a carpenter. “Magnus. Magnus Burnsides. Steven’s new apprentice.”---snapshots from magnus and julia's relationship, told mostly through julia's pov





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> i've been posting all these to my twitter before i realized i could post them here to! they're all incredibly short but they aren't meant to be a sprawling story, just a little look into how i think their relationship went
> 
> magnus and julia are both immensely important to me and these snapshots felt very good to write, i hope they're good to read as well!

The man staring at her had a crooked nose and a number of scars. His hair was wild and he had moderately impressive sideburns (and Julia was not easily impressed). When he gave her a roguish smile and she didn’t immediately recoil she knew she was in trouble. “Hail and well met!” 

“And you are?” She raised an eyebrow. 

He stuck out a hand, it was rough and calloused, covered in threads of tiny scars. The hand of a carpenter. “Magnus. Magnus Burnsides. Steven’s new apprentice.”

She returned the favor, “Julia. Julia Waxmen. Steven’s daughter.” His eyes widened just a bit, but his grip stayed the same. They shook for a little too long, staring each other in the eye. Julia tried very hard not to think of what living with this man was going to be like. “So, carpenter I assume?”

“O-oh yeah! Yes,” that roguish smile dropped for just a second, replaced with a more excited grin. “Yeah, that’s what I do.” He reached into his pack and pulled something out. Julia stared. It was a perfectly carved wooden duck.  _ Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.  _

“You made this?” Despite her reservations, she sounded impressed.

He blushed, something that seemed odd on such a big man, and nodded, “It’s kinda my thing.”

Well, now she was curious, “Why’s that?”

“I--” he blinked, ”--I’m not sure. Just is, I guess.”

“Hmmm.”  _ A carpenter with a strange affinity for carving ducks.  _ “So, is that all you make?”

“No I--I can do other things. Bigger things.” 

“Is that why my father hired you?”

“I hired him because he’s got a good set of hands and a passion for the art,” Steven Waxmen came through the door with a decidedly not-roguish smile and kind eyes. “Anyone can make a chair, Magnus can make something special.”

“And also a chair, right? He can make a chair too?” Truth be told, Julia loved her father’s sentimentality, but what kind of daughter would she be without some ribbing. 

“I make chairs!” Magnus’ voice was too big for their shop. He blushed again, “I can make all sorts of things,” he said, quieter this time. 

Steven nodded, “And I’ll teach him, of course. He  _ is  _ an apprentice.”

“Do you carve?” Magnus was staring at her with some look she couldn’t decipher, which was frustrating. Julia didn’t enjoy not understanding things. 

“A little, never took to it as my father did but I wouldn’t be his daughter if I didn’t.”

Steven reached over and gave her a one-armed hug, “That’s my girl.”

  
  



	2. numbers

“How do you keep all these straight?”

Julia jumped at Magnus’ booming voice. Since he’d started living with them she’d noticed that he didn’t really seem to have a ‘quiet’ setting, unless he was carving. She’d seen him whisper things to whatever he was working on like there was something that could hear him. She’d asked him about it once, maybe he’d had a pet dog, but Magnus’ eyes had clouded over and he’d said in a far away voice, _No, no dog._ She wasn’t sure what to make of it, but Julia knew when something wasn’t her business (though she did have a bad habit of trying to _make it_ her business).

Magnus moved further into the room and started fiddling with the notebooks of numbers she’d been pouring over. Someone had to keep the shop running, and Steven had never had a head for math. Julia learned at a young age that counting change correctly could get you far in life, and Julia intended to go very far.

“I just sort them in my head,” he gave her a, _like it’s that easy_ , look. “It’s not for everyone.”

“You’re so smart, Jules,” and Magnus was looking at her with those eyes, the ones she’d been trying to ignore. The thing about Magnus Burnsides is that he pretends to be trouble, but Julia’s seen the cracks in his rugged shell spread until they’re not hairline fractures but canyons. She knows he’s good, knows just _how good_ he is, knows that he’s just the type of man she should be falling in love with.

Which is why Julia is working so hard not to.

“I just sort them in my head,” she repeated, almost petulant.

“Well, it’s a good thing you do. I’d--Er, we’d be lost without you.” And for just a moment he’d sounded so earnest it hurt.

The, ‘not falling in love’ wasn’t working out too well.

  
  



	3. trouble

Julia was in trouble.

She’d caught herself signing her third document as, “Julia Burnsides,” a kind of dreamy smile on her face like some schoolgirl. She’d never done it in front of Steven or--god forbid-- _Magnus_ , but three times was enough to worry.

They hadn’t even kissed yet, hadn’t done more than hold hands and not talk about their feelings. Magnus would compliment her, she’d smile, they’d stare into each other’s eyes and the world around them would disappear...and then Magnus would continue carving and Julia would continue reading. Or, Julia would wake up in the middle of the night and go to the kitchen and Magnus would be there and she’d say, _Bad dream?_ And he’d nod and they would stand there in silence until Julia opened her arms and she would hold him until he’d say, _Your turn_ , and hug _her_. And after a while they'd go back to bed, not talking about it in the morning. 

What any of this meant was beyond her. Julia knew she should say something, that’s kinda her thing. But Magnus seemed determined, like he knew what he was doing, _courting her_ or something, and, frankly, Julia never pictured herself as someone who could fall in love so all those master plans and strategies he teased her about happening in that _big head of yours, Jules_ were nonexistent. What does someone do when they want to be married, but haven’t had a first date yet?

And it’s not like she could ask anyone. Raven’s Roost was a small town, gossip traveled lightning fast. The minute she whispered to the tailor that she was having relationship troubles with Magnus there’d be at least five rumors about the baby they weren’t having.

And Julia didn’t even want to _think_ about a Burnsides baby.

So she kept her mouth uncharacteristically shut, going through the emotional motions with Magnus, teasing him about the way his sideburns were always coated in a layer of wood dust, holding his hand under the dinner table, calling him, “Mags,” if she was feeling adventurous. And waited for him to enact whatever plan he seemed to have in store.

But here’s a fact she’d come to learn about Magnus and often look fondly on: he’s not too good with plans. And Julia can’t say she was surprised when, one day, they were cooking dinner together, both of them near hopeless in the kitchen but trying anyway, and he’d just said in his booming voice, “Julia, I love you.”

And she’d turned to look at him, at the fact that he looked mortified, and said, “Oh thank god,” and kissed him.

“Magnus Burnsides,” she said, “I love you too.”


	4. dancing

Magnus twirled Julia around, laughing as she spun and returned the favor. They were at a party celebrating the end of Kalen’s control over Raven’s Roost’s imports and exports, thrown by the council. Everyone had crowded into Raven’s Roost’s only dancing hall to do exactly that, and Magnus and Julia--as leaders of the revolution--were ushered to the center of the circle.

They spent the night teaching each other ridiculous dance moves. Julia had never been out of Raven’s Roost, but she had a large imagination and an insatiable curiosity when it came to the traveling performers that came through town every once in awhile.

For his part, Magnus seemed to actually know a thing or two about dancing, but he was very bad at it. Julia was eating it up. He’d stepped on her foot more times than she could count, but she couldn't help laughing and switching around her feet. She was in better spirits than ever. 

Liquid fire poured through the town of Raven’s Roost that night, every high off the heat of a successful rebellion, a turning point for the better. The people laughed harder, cheered louder, smiled wider, lived _more_ in that moment than they had in a long time. There was a safety to the celebration that they hadn’t had in months--years. A freedom to their actions that they’d almost forgotten existed. On that night, the people of Raven’s Roost could do anything.

And so Magnus decided to do something big.

He’d spun Julia, she’d spun him, they’d stared at each other for a moment, chests heaving. And he’d pulled a wooden ring out of his pocket, knelt on one knee, smiled up at the woman he desperately wanted to be his wife and laughed nervously. “Jules, I--well. I don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time. I kinda just rush in and hope for the best. And it’s always worked for me,” he laughed again, a little less nervous, “until I met you. I found myself making plans--real plans! About the future! Things I never thought about, like if I really needed _another_ dresser, or how to not spend all of my commission at once; I made a grocery list for you! I’ve never made a grocery list before!” He rubbed the back of his neck, “but you made me want to, Jules. You--uh--make me want to do a lot of things." He rolled the ring around in his fingers, "I’d kind of planned to be a bachelor forever, but you changed that. You made me want to be with you, so bad that it’s all I can think about sometimes--all the time.” Magnus stared into Julia’s eyes and took a deep breath, “Julia Waxman, will you marry me?”


	5. gazebo

“So I started a new project.” 

Julia  _ hmmed _ and made another tally in her ledger, “Something interesting?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” and Magnus’ voice sounded almost strangled. 

She looked up, “What is it?”

“Well, it’s a--uh,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “a gazebo.”

“Oh?”

He coughed, “I was thinking we could--you know. I was thinking we could get married. Under it.”

“The gazebo?” She laughed a little, stunned.

“I mean--yea.”

“That you built?”

“I haven’t finished it yet but--yes.”

“For our wedding?” She closed her ledger

“Yeah, I--Jules, I’m dying here.” And his eyes were pleading.

So, of course, Julia lept from her chair and tackled Magnus in a bear hug, “Absolutely, you big goof! You’re building a gazebo for us!” She kissed his scruffy cheek. 

He laughed, “Yeah, I am. God, Jules, I love you.”

“I love you too, Mags,” and she kissed him again, “I can’t believe--a  _ gazebo _ . For our  _ wedding _ .”

“Yep!”

“How on earth did I get so lucky?”

“Funny,” he smiled, “I’d say the same thing.”

  
  



	6. dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: i know there's no way that magnus would remember fisher's name but please let me have this

They didn’t actually plan to take her home. 

“She was just staring at us with these  _ eyes _ , you don’t understand,” Magnus was explaining to Steven, who was trying very hard to look stern at their impulsive decisions, but no one could stare at the sweet chocolate lab for long and stay stern. 

“It was supposed to be a volunteer trip,” he looked like he was resisting the urge to pet her.

“And it was!” Julia cut in, “We definitely did volunteer! And then we helped business by adopting a dog,” she nodded at Magnus, “really we went above and beyond. I would say we should be rewarded, but living with this beautiful angel is reward enough.”

Magnus laughed, “Thanks, Jules.”

She shoved him, “Oh, you know I was talking about the dog, you doofus.” 

“And what a beautiful angel she is,” he leaned down and scratched behind her ears, “Aren’t you? Aren’t you?” She barked and licked his cheek. Magnus looked like she’d given him the moon. 

“This beautiful angel needs a name,” Steven clapped a hand on Julia’s shoulder, “Any ideas?”

“Magnus and I were talking about Baby?”

“Because she’s a perfect little baby, yes she is, yes she is.”

Steven’s eyes twinkled, “Any...other ideas?”

“I hadn’t thought of anything good y--”

“What about Fisher?”

Both Julia and Steven turned to stare at Magnus. “Fisher?”

He had that faraway look he got when he was thinking of things that Julia kept telling herself were none of her business until he decided it was time to tell her. “Yeah, it’s a good name. Fits her, I think.”

“But...she’s a dog?” Julia tapped her fingers on her leg one-two-three times, “You think it fits?”

“I think I--I had a pet named Fisher and it feels--I think it would be good. A good name.”

She breathed, “Okay, Mags, I trust your dog naming judgement. Fisher it is.”

And he smiled and blew a raspberry on Fisher’s head, “Perfect.”


	7. fire

Magnus sometimes thought of Julia as a forest fire. 

She burned bright and hot, wiped out anything in her path no matter how big, plowed through empty brush fields and left new land in their place. She was uncontrollable--refused to be controlled by anything other than herself. Her standards or nothing at all. 

And the way she danced like an open flame, sidestepping through the crowds of people, pulling Magnus along while they both pretended to fight for the lead when Magnus knew he’d lost since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. 

Because Julia was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful, the way you can’t seem to pull your gaze away even after the trees are gone and the brush is cleared. 

And he loved her for it.

 

* * *

 

Julia imagine Magnus as a campfire when they were in bed after a long day of work and heavy labor, staring at some of the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Magnus had insisted they stick up above their bed. 

He was sturdy--strong and open, light bouncing off everything willing to come just close enough and, sometimes, not even. He listened to stories and told his own with gusto, hands flying, arms pinwheeling, an apology for knocking over the lamp again that’s just a little too late. 

And--unattended--he could get out of control. Unattended, he could don that roguish smirk and tower over you like he was trying to prove he really was the strongest in the room.

But sometimes he cast enough warmth to keep going and sometimes he held the door open for Julia even though she could easily get it herself and sometimes he just stopped what he was carving and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

And he made her smile. 

 


	8. love and death

The thing about being in love with Magnus Burnsides is that--well, there are a lot of things. Most of them floating-on-a-cloud, never-heard-of-tragedy, heart-so-full-it-might-burst levels of wonderful. And some of them...Magnus is Magnus and he will do what Magnus does: recklessly put himself in danger for family, friends, strangers, animals, a particularly well-made table once. And Julia tried to do what Julia does: plan. She maneuvered situations so that no one was in danger, kept everything on the checkered game board path and didn’t let the pieces stray too far. 

But then Kalen happened. 

The thing about orchestrating a revolution is that there is no such thing as  _ safe _ anymore. Julia plans--she writes strategies bleary-eyed after two hours of sleep in three days; she moves wooden pieces Magnus has carved around their kitchen table in a semblance of battle positions; she adds together lists of supply costs and then double--triple checks her math. But no matter how hard she choreographs each encounter with Kalen’s guard, each stuttered shout for justice, people get hurt.  _ Magnus  _ gets hurt. Before, it was a cut from a broken glass bottle thrown during a bar fight he didn’t start; now, it’s knife wounds, a shallow cut from a sword, a shortbow bolt sticking out of his arm. 

People are getting hurt and Julia doesn’t know how to stop it. 

But they kept at it. Magnus put his rustic hospitality to good use. Julia drew maps. They formed a council. They held weekly strategy meetings in the back room of the Hammer & Tongs. And people stop getting hurt as often. Kalen started backing down from their encounters, overwhelmed by the sheer defiance of his supposed citizens. They took back the bookstore first, and Julia was pleased. She always liked that place. The school was next, the grocer's and the tailor not far behind. Suddenly there were no more entirely-Kalen-controlled corridors, and suddenly they had the trading post back, and suddenly they controlled all exports.

And suddenly they won.

Kalen goes down quietly. The council meets for a full 6 hours debating whether he should be hanged or not. In the end they let him live, but they force him out. 

And Magnus and Julia lived happily ever after, no more government conspiracies or small town revolutions to take care of. Magnus entered craftsman contest after craftsman contest now that they could leave Raven’s Roost. Julia tried to learn to cook, but it became very apparent that she’d never make scrambled eggs as good as Steven’s. They got married under a gazebo that Magnus built himself, something she would never let him live down. Things were nice, peaceful. 

But Kalen had a habit of bitterness and the Burnsides took everything from him. He snuck back into Raven’s Roost after licking his wounds for a few months. Magnus was gone, competition for a chair he’d been so eager to make (a customer at the shop had seen his progress and smiled and said,  _ Nice chair for rocking a newborn,  _ and Magnus’ eyes had  _ gleamed _ ). Julia had opened the door and suddenly she was on her knees, clutching at the dagger in her gut and bleeding all over their welcome mat (it had two huge paw prints and a little dog face that proclaimed,  _ Wipe your paws here! _ ). She didn’t even have time to shout before he’d lit a match, then another, then another, tossing them on all the beautiful hand-carved piece of their home.  _ Magnus is going to hate that,  _ she thought as the life left her eyes.  _ Magnus-- _ and she was dead. 


	9. ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is a little different. not necessarily something that i think happened, but an imagining if julia were a ghost

Julia was dead now.

And, wow, was that a loaded thought. Julia was dead now and Magnus wasn’t. Julia was dead now and she knew that Magnus would want to be, but Julia was dead now and she couldn’t _do_ anything about that. Because Julia was dead now and for some reason she was still here.

Julia was frozen, feet barely touching the hardwood floor, staring at the--her bod. It was strange, watching yourself not-breathe, seeing your eyes not-see. Her foot wasn’t tapping, her hand wasn’t fidgeting, no twitching at all. Julia Burnsides was constantly moving. Until she wasn’t.

 _That_ Julia couldn’t move--was no longer _Julia_ \--but experimentally she reached a hand and felt the fading warmth of her--the shoulder. She started, concentration breaking, and her hand slipped right through, a cloudy feeling on her fingertips. So she could do that.

Now the question was: what else could she do?

(It took a little longer to find out, because then the world collapsed as the support beams for the Craftsman's Corridor exploded. Because  _fucking_ Kalen).

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> while i'm trying to keep these in some semblance of chronological order, these are all that i've written up to this point and i don't plan to stop writing them? so from here on, they'll be posted out of chronological order and really just depending on the scenes i feel like writing.
> 
> i may post some aus or maybe more ghost julia as well later on, instead of just snapshots


	10. lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's one of those aus i was talking about! tangled is such a fun movie and i thought it'd be fun to

Julia clutched at her sides, overcome with nausea. She was dead, she was so dead. Not telling Steven about Magnus the first time was nothing compared to what she was doing now. This would  _ kill _ him. 

“So, I can see that you’re...upset.”

“Can you,” she breathed. 

“But really, this is the best way to go, right? Just a quick romp through the woods and then  _ boom _ you do your childhood dream and we’re square!” He peered at her, “We would be square, right?”

“Yes,” she huffed a breath, “take me to see the Light and then yes.”

“Well, see, I was thinking…” He rubbed the back of his neck, “why see the Light at all?” She froze. “I mean, you did it, you left your tower! Seen the world outside that place and experienced, you know, the grass, the dirt, all that. Isn’t that…” he stopped avoiding her eyes and looked at her, point-blank, “isn’t that enough?”

And Julia wasn’t nervous anymore, no, she was  _ mad _ , “Excuse me? You think I can just--just  _ give up  _ on something I’ve wanted for  _ eighteen years  _ because I had a--a, ‘quick romp through the woods’! No, sir, absolutely not. If you want that satchel back then you’re taking me to see the Light. I don’t care if we have to go to the moon and back!” She stomped, “Got it?”

Magnus had his hands up, a wide grin slowly spreading on his face, “Yep, got it. Won’t question it again.”

“Good.”

“But…” and Julia rounded on him. He  _ laughed _ , “Don’t worry, no changing the quest or anything. Just wondering...” and now he was smirking and Julia idly thought about how beautifully brown his eyes were before she blinked.  _ None of that.  _ “Can we stop for lunch?”


	11. skating

The Adventure Zone Skating Rink and Arcade had been open since long before Magnus Burnsides rolled into Julia’s small town, but it didn’t starting becoming a real place to her until he’d arrived at her house in his beat-up white truck, nervously wringing his hands at the doorway as she called to Steven that she was, “going out, I’ll be back a little after midnight!” (The Adventure Zone closed at 12:00am).

Sometimes something can exist for years before you start really seeing it. Julia’d always passed by the old barn out by the decrepit Dairy Queen until Magnus decided it was worth exploring (and hadn’t that been a night, storming harder than hell and she’d finally managed to kiss him under the leaky roof, light of the moon akimbo on their faces). The Adventure Zone had been open since long before Magnus Burnsides rolled into Raven’s Roost, but she and Magnus had gone there every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night for almost a year now and, in that time, Julia had determined that she wanted to have her wedding and all subsequent anniversaries there, celebrating right at the back table by the Pac-Man that squeaked when you sat down. 

Magnus was fine with this, laughing when she told him over his extra cheesy extra greasy nachos. “We’ll have a first skate to,” he paused, listening to the song playing over the P.A. System, “All Star by Smash Mouth?”

“Yeah, no, I’m taking control of the music.”

“So we’ll have our first skate to weird indie-folk?” 

She snorted, “Touché, Burnsides, touché.”

And so, just like that, it was decided. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh i'm absolutely going to write more of this, make no mistake


End file.
